Book protector



' Jan. 10, 1967 s. F. REED ETAL BOOK PROTECTOR 4 Sheets-Sheet 1 FiledAug. 19, 1964 nvvewrons STANLEY FOSTER REED FREDERICK e ANDREWS B) 42 4fATTORNEY Jan. 10, 1967 s. F. REED ETAL BOOK PROTECTOR 4 Sheets-Sheet 2Filed Aug. 19, 1964 Jan. 10, 1967 Filed Aug.' 19, 1964 S. F. REED ETALBOOK PROTECTOR 4 Sheets-Sheet 5 Iva Jan. 10, 1967 s. F REED ETAL BOOKPROTECTOR 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 Filed Aug. 19, 1964 mmii\iii\iiiiiiiiwi""FIG/0 United States Patent 3,297,341 A BOOK PROTECTOR Stanley FosterReed, 4005 Brookside, McLean, Va. 22101, and Fred P. Andrews, 2924McKinley St. NW., Washington, D.C. 20015 Filed Aug. 19, 1964, Ser. No.390,537 2 Claims. (Cl. 28134) This invention relates to book protectors.More particularly, this invention relates to a book cover protectorformed from a sheet or sheets of suitable pliable and foldable material,such as plastic, paper treated or untreated.

In the last twenty-five years there has been an everincreasingoutpouring of soft-cover books, also known as paper backed books, of ahandy size. These books by their very nature are relatively inexpensive.When these soft-cover books first came on the market, they representedtitles which already had made a splash as hard cover books; so for themost part they were reprints. Due to the tremendous increase in thecosts attendant the printing and binding of hard cover books which arereflected in the high costs of books, the softcover book has becomeexceedingly popular by reason of its lower cost and handy convenientform. As a matter of fact many new titles are now first printed in thesoft-cover form prior to hard-cover printing, if in fact it is printedin hard form at all.

In other words, at the present time, the soft cover book, also known aspaper-backed or pocket book is becoming more and more popular andpublishers are printing not only current fiction in this manner but alsofamous works, technical books and the like which the buyer will tend toretain and possibly place with his hard-cover books or standard boundbooks.

While the printing of these soft-cover books are usually of excellentquality, the covers in many cases do not lend themselves toincorporation in a permanent book collection, both from the point ofappearance and resistance to handling.

The present invention recognizes this problem and aims to providea bookcover protector that is adapted to be quickly and easily mounted on astandard paper-backed book and which will give a book of this nature anappearance and quality approaching those of a standard bound volume.

Accordingly, one embodiment of the invention comprises a book coverprotector adapted for use in covering books of varying sizes whichconsists of an outer cover of suitable flexible material which can beadjusted to suit books of varying thicknesses also provide additionalreinforcement. It will be appreciated that the cover of the presentinvention may be applied not only to soft-cover books but also incovering hard cover books. By applying the book protector of the presentinvention to hard cover books it is possible to repair, renovate andpreserve such books. The protector also fills the low cost function ofcovering magazines, trade and technical periodicals. In a modificationof the invention techniques are employed which produce a square book,meaning that the edges of the covers project beyond the edges of thepages as opposed to a book where the covers are flush with respect tothe edges of the pages. More about the techniques will be set forthsupra.

In particular, the invention sets forth a flexible substantiallyrectangular shaped, self-supporting web material having adhesive on onesurface thereof. The adhesive can be applied as needed or can bepreviously applied heat sealable or pressure sensitive adhesivematerial. When employing pressure sensitive adhesive it is necessary toprotect the pressure sensitive adhesive surface with a peelableprotective sheet. The sheet is suit- 3,297,341 Patented Jan. 10, 1967ably kiss die cut so that sections thereof may be removed from the web.Indicia is printed on the sheet as guide lines for cuts and folds ashereinafter illustrated. After suitable cutting and folding the bookcover is encompassed with the web and is secured thereto by suitableadhesive. In a preferred embodiment, the inside of the book cover isgiven further security by adhesively applying an inner sheet of suitablematerial to each inner side of the book cover. This sheet is of a sizeso that a small portion of the first page of the book along the bindingis also covered by the applied sheet.

Having thus generally described the nature of the invention, particularreference will be made to the accompanying drawings illustrating theinvention, and in which:

FIGURE '1 is a plan view of the sheet as manufactured and before being.cut and folded, but indicating the cutting lines and fold lines.

FIGURE 1A is a fragmentary portion of another embodiment of the sheet.

FIGURE .2 is a perspective view of the flattened blank from which theprotector is made, with a book, to which the blank is to be fitted, inplace, and showing the first step of fitting the blank of the book.

FIGURE 3 is a similar perspective view with the book in a horizontalposition to show the second step.

FIGURE 4 is a plan view of the cut protector.

FIGURE 5 is a plan view showing the first sections of the peelable sheetbeing removed.

FIGURE 6 is a perspective view showing the positioning of the book asthe second sections of the peelable sheet is removed.

FIGURE 7 is an exploded perspective view showing the inner cover afterapplication of the protector and inside liner.

FIGURE 8 is a cross-sectional view of one side of the cover, protectorand liner.

FIGURE 9 is a perspective of a square book having a protector in place.

FIGURE 10 is illustrative of unusual effects that may be given inutilizing the protectors of the present invention.

In the drawings, wherein for the purpose of illustration is shown apreferred embodiment of the invention and wherein similar referencecharacters designate corresponding parts throughout the several views,the numeral 10 designates, generally, a book and the numeral 11 thenovel protector cover therefor.

Prior to covering the book 10 it is preferred to make a score line alongthe upper surface of the back of the covers along the bound edge thereofindented approximately one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch. After thebook has been covered the score lines act as hinges and in effectrelieve stress from the spine of the book when the covers are flexed.Additionally, the score lines tend to inhibit What is known as flyingcovers, that is, covers which are spaced away from the leaves of thebook due to flexing the covers of the paper backed book and because ofthe relative light weight character of the cover.

Now, turning to the drawings for a more detailed consideration of oneembodiment of the invention, attention is directed to FIG. 1. The bookprotector, indicated, generally, as 11, of the present inventioncomprises a self-supporting flexible web which may be suitably grainedand colored to give a pleasing appearance. The web may be .plastic film,either opaque or trans parent, paper and especially of latex impregnatedheavy kraft paper with or without an additional resinous coating, suchas pyroxylin. The web can be of suitably tanned animal skins andtextiles of the woven and nonwoven type. The surface of the web can begiven conventional flock treatment. In this embodiment, on one surfaceof the sheet a pressure-sensitive adhesive is applied in a conventionalmanner. In order to provide protection of the pressure-sensitivematerial a peelable protective sheet 9 is secured thereto. The peelablesheet may be made of paper. It is pointed out that this peelable sheethas suitable indicia printed thereon to assist in determining the placesfor cutting and for folding. By means of FIG. 1, a clear view of thepeelable paper sheet is obtained showing the indicia thereon. In otherwords, the plan view shows a rectangularly shaped laminated materialwhich has a size sufficiently large to accommodate most of thepaper-backed books usually sold. However, since these books do vary insize, suitable provision has been made by means of the printed indiciaemploying solid lines for cutting purposes and broken lines as foldguide lines. For instance, by positioning the book 10 as shown in FIG.2, outline marks are made along appropriate lines 20 as indicated byscribing means 14 to account for the width of the book. After the markshave been made to outline the width of the book, cuts are made from thetop and bottom edges of the protector along the selected lines 20coincidin with the outline marks to said outline marks. Then cuts aremade from points 22 to the outline marks. It will be seen that the cutsalong lines 20 and from points 22 will result in four V-shaped cuts toprovide tabs J and L.

Then the book 10 is laid on one of its sides as in FIG. 3 to mark offthe corners as indicated. It is then turned to the other side and twoadditional corners are marked off. These outline marks, when made, willbe somewhere, for instance, along line 15 at each of the four corners,but specifically shown by an asterisk (for illustrative purposes) in theupper right hand corner of FIG. 1. After a mark has been made in allfour corners a portion of the protector is cut out along suitable solidlines 17 and 19. The cutting lines are selected to intersect at theasterisk placed along line 15.

The result of cutting the book protector in accordance with the outlinemarks can be seen from FIG. 4 where the four corners have been conformedand V-shaped cuts have been made to account for the spine of the book.

In FIG. 1 the broken lines 24, 26 and 27 are selective fold lines as arethe other broken lines in the figure.

The fold lines selected depend upon the positioning of the cuts so thatif one were to draw an imaginary line from all of the confluences ofeach of the double cuts at the corners along the top, bottom and sides arectangle would result which would have the outer dimensions of the bookcover parts 12 and 13.

In FIG. 4 broken lines 30, 31 and 32 are kiss die cuts in the peelablesheet 9 to provide weakened perforated lines. These lines have not beenshown in FIG. 1 in order to avoid obscuring the printed indicia.

The peelable sheet 9 is removed from the book cover protector insections through operation of the kiss die cuts. It will be appreciatedthat the kiss die cuts as shown is an important feature of the presentinvention and lends itself to more easily position the book and to coversame during the operation of applying the book cover protector to abook.

Attention is directed to FIG. which clearly shows removing the leftcentral portion A in order to expose a portion of the pressure sensitiveadhesive 34. As stated, the central panel A is easily removable due tothe perforations 30 and 31 of the kiss die cut operation. Once the leftcentral panel has been removed, tab portions J and L are freed of theright A panel and are then folded over as shown in FIG. 6 where one tabL is shown in broken lines under book 10. Preferably the tabs J and Lare folded over upon themselves several times or even rolled to providea plurality of thickness, thereby providing an upper and lowerreinforcement.

The book is then positioned as in FIG. 6 and the pressure-sensitivematerial 34 which has now become exposed adheres the protector toone-half of the spine portion of the book. Once this has beenaccomplished the upwardly extending book provides a good hold-downelement so that the right central panel A can then be easily removed toexpose yet additional pressure sensitive adhesive 34 on the protector sothat the entire spine is now covered with the adhering protector. Thereason for not removing greater portions of the panel at any one time isto prevent exposing too much of the pressure sensitive adhesive whichhas a tendency to curl the web. Additionally, it has been found to bemuch easier to smooth only small portions of the web at any one time.

Then left panel B is removed exposing additional adhesive surface of theprotector. The book is turned to a horizontal position so that a portionof the outside surface of the book cover part 13 is in contact with thepressure sensitive adhesive and the protector adheres to this portion ofthe book cover part 13. Suitable smoothing operation in order to removeair blisters and wrinkles to secure the protector further is a wiseoperation to achieve good adhesion. Then, the right panel B is removedand the book is turned so that additional protector may be adhered tobook cover part 12. Thereafter, a portion of left panel C is removedmaking available complete tabs K and D which are folded over book coverpart .13. The rest of panel C is then removed and tab G is folded overbook cover part 13. The sequence of steps is repeated with respect tobook cover part 12 and right panels B and C. Then tabs E, F and finallyI are folded over the book cover part 12 as shown in FIG. 7. It will beseen that tab E of FIG. 1 covers one upper edge portion, tab F coversthe lower edge and tab I covers a side edge. The inner folds as shown inFIG. 7 due to the unique corner cutting achieved produce relativelysmooth edges at the corners which proceed somewhat diagonally from thecorners of the book cover part 12.

In order to complete the securement of the folded portions E, F and I asshown in FIG. 7, the folds are smoothed down to insure that thepressure-sensitive adhesive material firmly grasps the inside of thebook cover part 12. Further, an inside liner 40 having approximately therectangular dimensions of the book cover part 12, but sufiicientlylarger to cover a small strip of an end page 29 along the binding edge,is laminated to the folds and inside of the book cover 12 by means ofsuitable adhesive material applied to the underside of the inside liner40. The adhesive may also be pressure sensitive adhesive. The insideliner 40 may be of the same material as the book cover protector toprovide yet further rigidity to the book, when it is a paperbacked book,or may be composed of light paper or cardboard. When of fairly stiffmaterial the liner must be scored at the junction with the book. Theliner 40 should be tucked into the joint as at 28 of FIG. 8.

FIG. 8 shows a cross sectional view of a portion of the book coverprotector as applied to a paper backedbook cover. It will be seen thatthe protector 11 embraces the under portion of the book cover and thenenfolds to cover a part of the inside of the book cover part 13. Theinside liner 40 then secures the folded protector 11 and providesfurther rigidity and strength characteristics of a hard back book coverby picking up a portion of the end page 29.

In FIG. 1A an arrangement is provided which is utilized when the cornersof the books are rounded. In other words in place of lines 17 and 19,guide line 40 for the cut lines are used. In the cutting operation,narrow V-shaped cut-outs are effected by cutting along lines 40. Theresulting tabs M1, M2 and M3 are folded in sequence inwardly over theinner surface of the book.

It is also within the purview of the present invention to provide precutblanks for utilization to cover books of the same size, in this way itis unnecessary to provide outline marks and cuts. The adhesive in suchcases may be applied just before utilization of the protector.

In the foregoing a general description of the invention has been setforth. However, it is contemplated that many modifications will come tomind within the purview of the invention. For instance, when a heatsealable adhesive is employed on the protector cover, the adhesive isnot tacky at room temperature so that no peelable protection sheet needbe employed. The protector covers can be mass cut for utilization incovering books of the same size on an assembly line basis. Suitableheating irons may be employed to tackify the adhesive to secure theprotector cover to the book cover. It has been found to be unnecessaryto secure the protector cover to the spine of the book; the previouslymentioned scoring technique along With no adhesion of the protectorcover to the spine of the book insures that little stress is placed onthe spine of the book.

In another modification, a head and tail band can be secured to theoutside of the book prior to the application of the cover. On the otherhand the head and tail band can be applied over the folded or rolledtabs I and L prior to utilization of the protector cover. Suitableadhesive is employed to secure the head and tail bands.

It will be appreciated that as far as soft-cover books are concerned,the books offer perfect binding, that is, do not possess a square edgeas defined in the above. In the foregoing, primary concern was withmerely setting forth the fact that the tabs E, F, I, D, K and G werefolded over the edges of cover parts 12 and 13. A folding step carriedout to tightly follow the contours of the edges of cover parts 12 and 13produces more or less a flush surface with respect to the edges of thebook cover and pages. On the other hand by grossly folding, that is, bymoving the fold line away from the edges of the cover there results adouble folded extension thereby providing a book cover which extendsbeyond the edges of the pages. The result is closely akin to a hardcover book.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention a square edge and afinger grip is provided. Attention is directed to FIG. 9 where a book isshown which has already been covered by any of the methods set forth inthe foregoing. However, it will be seen that along the free' edges ofthe pages they have been planed or cut back to form a recess or set backexcept along the top section 42 and a similarly positioned bottomsection (not shown). This small area provides a finger hold whenremoving the book 10 from a shelf.

In most instances the protector cover will be of an opaque material.Rather than print or write a title on the already covered book, anopening or window can be made in the protector cover to coincide withthe title printed on the book. This opening can be along the spine orfront of the protector cover.

To provide multi-colored effects, a central portion of one coloredprotector may be combined with two outer portions of one or more otherprotector covers having different colors. Attention is directed to FIG.10 which illustrates techniques applicable to producing a multicoloredprotector. Prior to removing the peelable sheets 9 of two differentlycolored protectors they cut along lines 31, that is along the kiss diecuts. The central portions are applied to each of two books. Thendifierent colored protectors are used to cover the rest of the bookcovers. The general effect of the operation is shown in FIG. 10, havingthe pleasing appearance of a quarter bound .book. By cutting up theprotectors of the present invention other modifications can be maderesulting in, for instance, half bound books, etc.

In providing for the multi-colored effects as outlined in the precedingparagraph, it will be appreciated that the invention as set forth hereinalso includes the concept that the materials from which the coveringmaterial is fabricated may also differ.

The present invention must also include covering materials not yetpresently developed inasmuch as the invention resides primarily as setforth herein above rather than in the specific materials used infabricating a cover.

It will be recalled that the peelable sheet contains kiss die cuts foreasy removing of strips as desired and as set forth in the above. Whilekiss die cuts are preferable, that is not to say that the presentinvention does not include other means for achieving weakened tear linessuch as scoring and the like.

Many adhesives may be utilized in affixing the cover to the book. It isentirely possible to utilize means for applying an adhesive just priorto application of the cover to the book. In other words, a multiplicityof covers may be cut by means of suitable dies in order to cover amultipilicity of books having identical dimensions. In other words, thepresent invention may be easily set up for assembly line production sothat the peelable sheet may be avoided.

It has been found that greater rigidity can be provided by employingstiffening boards which are applied to the outside of the book coverparts 12 and 13 prior to covering with the protector cover.

It will be observed that many changes modifica tions of the severalfeatures described herein may be made without departing from the spiritand scope of the invention. It is therefore apparent that the foregoingdescription is by Way of illustration of the invention rather thanlimitation of the invention.

What is claimed is: v

1. A book cover protector comprising a self=supporting flexible webhaving ends, a top and a bottom; said web being coated with adhesive; apeelable protecting cover positioned over said adhesive coating; saidpeelable cover having spaced weakened tear lines across the width of thecover defining specific portions of the peelable protecting cover to besequentially removed; each of the corners having cut-outs along lineswhich make a small angle with an imaginary perpendicular line withrespect to each end, top and bottom and the cut-outs defining obtuseangles; substantially mid-way between the ends, the top and bottom eachhaving two spaced V-shaped cutouts thereby producing tabs.

2. A book cover protector comprising a self-supporting flexible webhaving ends, a top and a bottom; said web being coated with adhesive; apeelable protecting cover positioned over said adhesive coating; saidpeelable cover having spaced weakened tear lines defining specificportions of the peelable protecting cover to be sequentially removed;each of the corners having a plurality of small angle V-shaped cut-outsthereby producing a plurality of a first set of tabs; substantiallymid-way between the ends, the top and bottom of each having two spacedV-shaped cut-outs thereby producing a second set of tabs; and a thirdset of tabs between each of the first set and second set of tabs.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 210,711 12/1878Reynolds 28134 560,323 5/1896 Norton 281-15 X 1,284,896 11/1918 Holdenet a1. 281-34 1,354,354 9/1920 Toland 281-34 1,618,733 2/ 1927 Shar-rard28 l-34 2,057,986 10/1936 Walraven 28134 2,145,098 1/1939 Sharp 281-342,145,099 1/1939 Sharp 28134 3,080,178 3/1963 Brody 28134 3,133,7505/1964 Gerald 281-34 3,222,085 12/1965 Young 281-34 LAWRENCE CHARLES,Primary Examiner;

1. A BOOK COVER PROTECTOR COMPRISING A SELF-SUPPORTING FLEXIBLE WEBHAVING ENDS, A TOP AND A BOTTOM; SAID WEB BEING COATED WITH ADHESIVE; APEELABLE PROTECTING COVER POSITIONED OVER SAID ADHESIVE COATING; SAIDPEELABLE COVER HAVING SPACED WEAKENED TEAR LINES ACROSS THE WIDTH OF THECOVER DEFINING SPECIFIC PORTIONS OF THE PEELABLE PROTECTING COVER TO BESEQUENTIALLY REMOVED; EACH OF THE CORNERS HAVING CUT-OUTS ALONG LINESWHICH MAKE A SMALL ANGLE WITH AN IMAGINARY PERPENDICULAR LINE WITHRESPECT TO EACH END, TOP AND BOTTOM AND THE CUT-OUTS DEFINING OBTUSEANGLES; SUBSTANTIALLY MID-WAY BETWEEN THE ENDS, THE TOP AND BOTTOM EACHHAVING TWO SPACED V-SHAPED CUTOUTS THEREBY PRODUCING TABS.